China, EU reaffirm climate pledges after Trump backs away

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks between Vice President Mike Pence (L) and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt prior to signing an executive order on "energy independence," eliminating Obama-era climate change regulations, during an event at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters in Washington, U.S., March 28, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Ben Blanchard and Alister Doyle

BEIJING/OSLO (Reuters) - Nations led by China and the European Union rallied around a global plan to slow climate change on Wednesday after U.S. President Donald Trump began undoing Obama-era plans for deep cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

Trump's order on Tuesday, keeping a campaign promise to bolster the U.S. coal industry, strikes at the heart of an international Paris Agreement in 2015 to curb world temperatures that hit record highs in 2016 for the third year in a row.

Many nations reacted to Trump's plan with dismay and defiance, saying a vast investment shift from fossil fuels to clean energy such as wind and solar power is underway with benefits ranging from less air pollution to more jobs.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang, whose government cooperated closely with former U.S. President Barack Obama's administration on climate change, said all countries should "move with the times".

"No matter how other countries' policies on climate change, as a responsible large developing country China's resolve, aims and policy moves in dealing with climate change will not change," he said.

European Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said the EU saw the Paris agreement as a "growth engine" for creating jobs and new investment opportunities.

"Donald Trump's attempt to turn the U.S. into a Jurassic Park run by dinosaur energy will eventually fail," said Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

CLEAN POWER

Trump's main target is Obama's Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants and was key to the U.S. pledge under Paris to cut emissions by between 26 and 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

Trump did not say whether he would pull out of the Paris Agreement, agreed by almost 200 nations and which seeks a shift from fossil fuels this century as the cornerstone of efforts to limit heat waves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

The fear is that less action by the United States, the number two greenhouse gas emitter behind China, will cause other nations to roll back their own goals. The pact has been ratified so far by 141 nations ranging from Pacific island states to OPEC oil producers.

The Paris Agreement lets each country set domestic targets for restricting greenhouse gases and foresees no sanctions for non-compliance. Trump has sometimes called global warming a hoax but has also said he has an open mind about Paris.

Still, Trump's rowback is likely to undercut a core principle of the Paris Agreement that all national plans, due to be submitted every five years this century, have to be ever stronger and reflect the "highest possible ambition".

A formal withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could trigger far wider criticisms, perhaps calls for import taxes on U.S. goods.

Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who was an architect of the Paris agreement, denounced Trump's moves as "a very serious step backwards".

German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks warned Washington it could lose out. "A shift into "reverse (gear) now will only hurt themselves in terms of international competitiveness," she told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily.

In many sectors, a shift from coal is underway.

A report by the U.S. Department of Energy in January said 43 percent of the workforce in electric power generation, or about 374,000 workers, were employed in the solar sector. Fossil fuels accounted for just 22 percent of jobs in the sector.

U.S. greenhouse gas emissions fell 11 percent from 2005-15. Bill Hare, head of the Climate Analytics think-tank, said they may remain at current levels by 2030 with Trump's policies.

Trump's policies could in turn nudge up the global rise in temperatures by about 0.1 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) from a projected 2.8 degrees (5.0F) by 2100, based on existing government pledges for action, he said.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle, Stine Jacobsen in Copenhagen, Tom Miles in Geneva, Madeline Chambers in Berlin, Ben Blanchard and David Stanway in Beijing, Nina Chestney and Susanne Twidale in London, Alissa de Carbonnel and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels, Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris; Editing by Gareth Jones)